Having coffee in the morning can give you more than just an injection of energy and energy and can improve your alertness – it can also protect you against the development of more serious forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

«Coffee consumption seems to have some correlation with a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, but we wanted to investigate why this happens – which compounds are involved and how they can affect age-related cognitive decline,» explains Dr. Donald Weaver, who did research with his colleagues Ross Mancini and Yanfei Wang of the Krembil Brain Institute (Canada).

The team chose to investigate three different types of coffee – light roasting, strong roasting and decaffeinated strong roasting.

«Caffeinated dark toasted coffee and no caffeine had similar potencies in our initial experimental trials, so we observed from the beginning that its protective effect could not be due to caffeine,» said Dr. Mancini, confirming earlier research that concluded that coffee decaffeinated coffee also increases life expectancy and that caffeine is not responsible for the good that coffee does for the liver.

Phenylindanes

Going deeper, the team identified a group of compounds known as phenylindanes, which emerge as a result of the roasting process of the coffee beans.

Phenylindanes are the only compound investigated in the study that prevents – or rather inhibits – the aggregation of both amyloid beta and tau, two common protein fragments in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

«So the phenylindanes are a double inhibitor. Very interesting, we were not expecting that,» said Dr. Weaver.

As roasting generates larger amounts of phenylindan, dark roasted coffee appears to be more protective than lightly roasted coffee.
And the fact of being a natural, not synthetic, compound is also a great advantage.

«Mother Nature is a much better chemistry than we are, and Mother Nature is capable of producing these compounds. If you have a complicated compound, it is best to grow it in a crop, harvest the crop, grind the crop, rather than try to fabricate it,» said Dr. Weaver.

But he admits further research is needed before these compounds can translate into potential therapeutic options against dementia.

«What this study does is pick up epidemiological evidence and try to refine it and demonstrate that there are actually components within the coffee that are beneficial to stave off cognitive decline.» Yet, the researcher admits that coffee can not be the cure for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

What do you think about this new research on coffee as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s prevention? Tell us what you think on the comments below.